How do you build confidence?

Post Reply New Topic

I feel like I can't get any shred of confidence I have back. I have a wonderful life..supportive husband, great kids..but I can't make or keep friends. It's like I think I'm not worth their time or friendship and so I end up saying and doing weird things. I always assume people are against me and are looking down on me, and my husband says that I take the meanings behind peoples' words wrong (ha!). I battled anorexia up until I got pregnant with my first child 6 years ago, and ever since that I've been overweight. I'm comfortable with who I am and the fact that it's incredibly difficult (if not impossible) for me to lose weight, plus my husband doesn't even mind my body a bit, but I still feel like the only time I had confidence and liked myself was when I wasn't eating and was super skinny. I feel like my lack of confidence stems from multiple sources, so I don't really know what exactly to do/change. I've had a lot of rejection in my life, so I just feel like everybody sees me as a reject.

This post is kind of a mess, but hopefully someone understands. So how so you build confidence?

If you feel like you're not doing any kind of progress, you should stop for a moment and get a small distraction, just to stop thinking about it because I think you may be feeling bad right now and maybe you need to stop thinking about many bad things for a moment(at least 10 minutes).
After having a small pause, maybe you'll feel a little refreshed in your mind.
You don't need to be super confident right now, even a little bit of confidence will do enough to get started.

Sometimes learning how to do something new helps; like learning to play an instrument or taking a language class. The more you progress with it the more your confidence grows. It's not the complete solution, but it's a start.

One of the most difficult things in life to learn is that it's ok to make mistakes. When you learn a musical instrument it sounds really awful at first, but the more you practice, the more you learn from your mistakes.

How about joining an exercise class, something like Zumba which is fun. That way you can feel good each time you go because you are doing something good for your body, getting it moving and creating happy endorphines. It's a healthy way to deal with your body issues rather than not eating because slipping back into anorexia would not help your confidence either. But don't focus on the weight, do it because it's fun or you won't enjoy it.

And you might make some new friends at classes, whether they be exercise, guitar, crafts or spanish or whatever you are interested in.